44 OUR ENGLISH LAND MUDDLE. 



were over 190,000,000 acres, a proportion of it 

 held on lease and occupied with fences, water- 

 dams, houses, offices, by the hated pastoralists 

 (and assuredly the more desirable for that !). 

 It was all for the people, the sovereign people, 

 with the exception of a very small freehold area. 

 Any one of the sovereign people might go any- 

 where and " free select " — with what proud 

 sovereignty ! — up to 320 acres of the land that 

 he wanted. There were some conditions, cer- 

 tainly : the payment of a deposit to the Govern- 

 ment ; the payment of instalments afterwards, 

 until £1 an acre had been paid ; and dwelling 

 conditions, too, which were designed to confine 

 free selection to those of the sovereign people 

 genuinely anxious to till the soil. But these 

 conditions had little practical efficacy. 



It did not take ome people long to discover 

 what power of rol, ery and destruction a mis- 

 chievous and unthii king demagoguery had put 

 in their hands. Australia is a country of rare 

 watercourses, and over the greater part of its 

 area some artificial conservation of water is 

 necessary. What more simple than for the free 

 selector to find that he wanted 320 acres just 



